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In order to understand metaphysics and paranormal phenomena, we need to have sufficient knowledge of the astral plane.
1)The astral plane has seven sub-divisions, each with its corresponding condition of matter.
It extends thousands of miles above the surface of the earth and matter is arranged in it, like it is in our atmosphere, the denser matter being in the lower planes and the rarefied less dense matter, higher up. It consists of seven different planes, not all of which are placed one on top of another like the storeys of a building; neither are they arranged in concentric circles like the insides of an onion. They intermingle with and interpenetrate each other, and some of the lower ones interlace with our physical plane. The astral plane is in a constant state of flux, due to the rotation of the earth around its axis and also the revolution of the earth around the sun.
The lowest and densest region of the astral plane is supposed to be partly on the surface of the earth and partly beneath it. People who have led an evil, selfish life and have been cruel and brutal to their fellow men are believed to pass on to this dark region where they stay in miserable surroundings. Pitiably helpless, they are chained down in the astral prisons and have only themselves to blame for their miserable plight. All scriptures irrespective of religion are unanimous in that murderers, cheats, drunkards, liars and the majority of people who commit suicide have to pay for their sins in this way.
Life on the higher planes is much better than life in the lower ones. Humans, plants and animals are in their astral forms, which are exact counterparts of their physical forms and hence recognisable. There are buildings, mountains, rivers, lakes and forests all made up of astral matter.
As one rises higher and higher on the astral plane, matter becomes less dense, the scenery more beautiful and the beings more spiritually advanced. The highest regions are known as the abode of the Gods and most souls are one with the infinite. In this infinitely beautiful, clean and pure astral heaven there is no suffering, only everlasting peace and joy. Beings from higher planes can penetrate the lower and materialise on them, but not vice-versa.
2) Matter in the astral plane exists at a different frequency than matter in our world.
This whole big world is invisible to the majority of mankind because its matter is at a higher frequency of vibration than ours. Each of the seven different planes has its own frequency of vibration and own density of matter. Each individual soul occupies that which matches its frequency, the more unselfish and spiritual a soul, the greater is the frequency of its vibrations, and higher is its place in the astral world.
3) Inhabitants of the astral plane:The beings that inhabit the vast and populous hidden realms of nature can best be divided into three groups - the human, the non-human and the artificial. The human denizens can again be subdivided into those who have a physical body on earth and those who don’t. We cannot use the word ‘dead’for these beings, because nobody is dead on the astral plane; if anything, they are more alive than we are.
Astral beings have the same thoughts, emotions and personality traits they had on earth, and the face and figure of astral beings supposedly resemble those they had in their youth. These beings can travel from one place to another by simply wishing and hence can move faster than electricity or other earthly energies. Beauty here is a spiritual quality, not something external, and astral beings can dematerialise and materialise their form at will. Their life span is much more than on earth and the time-length a person resides in the astral world depends on his karma. An astral being meets his long dead relatives - mothers, fathers, husbands, wives and children, acquired during different incarnations on earth. These beings can see, hear, taste, smell and touch anything they desire by thought alone. Thought is all-powerful, and what is thought of is immediately achieved.
Certain spiritual persons and those skilled at meditation who can focus their attention and tune into these unknown dimensions can travel at will in the astral plane. Some can bring back to waking consciousness memories of what they saw and the people they met while on the astral plane. In order to carry out these out-of-the-body feats efficiently special training and much practice is required. Interestingly, it is said, the astral body of a spiritually advanced person is better defined as compared to that of the spiritually less advanced.
A common belief held by many is that the astral body of most people moves away from the physical during deep sleep. The astral body floats about on the various astral currents present in the astral world. Here, it meets others and has pleasant as well as unpleasant experiences which are transmitted back to the sleeping brain and are interpreted as dreams. This is one amongst the many interpretations one may make of dreams. Since the astral body of a normal man is unaware of the astral plane, the recollections of the experience are vague and hazy.
Practitioners of Voodoo and black magic can, to a certain extent, achieve astral projection, but cannot gain mastery, as their purpose is evil and negative. These troublesome entities are best avoided and people who do not have sufficient experience of the astral plane should be particularly cautious.
The most common astral being is one that arrives there after death of the physical body. The divine power and its order dictate his fate on the different subdivisions of the astral plane. At the moment of death, the astral body is permanently freed from the physical and man’s after-death adventures start. Very often the ejected astral body is not sure it is dead and is therefore shocked and dazed. This is more likely to occur in people who have died suddenly as in any kind of accidental death. In some of these cases if the person who has died had led a pure life on earth and does not have unfulfilled desires pulling him back, the astral vehicle rises in the astral planes. In the case of people not wanting to let go, the astral vehicle hovers around in the lower planes near the places and people it was connected to. At times grieving relatives hold the person back, their grief and desires impeding his passage in the astral world. These hovering astral bodies when seen by psychically sensitive individuals are the ghosts we hear of in many a ghost story
Often these entities wish to communicate with their dear ones left behind. They queue up to psychics and mediums in a hope to pass on some message about their condition or to enlighten people on earth about some unfinished business. These entities can play mischief during spiritualistic seances. They cause impersonation, i.e. arrive at the spot when another spirit is called upon by sitters at a séance, and this, as one can imagine, causes considerable, sometimes even serious problems. They may not readily leave afterwards and linger around the people and places where the séance was conducted.
As mentioned earlier, in death there is a loss of the physical body only. Some residual traces of intellectual abilities, thoughts, emotions and desires are left behind. Some astral beings that are desperate to pass on the knowledge of their existence to the physical world resort to throwing stones, ringing bells and other similar things. This is what is commonly referred to as poltergeist activity found in many a tale about ghosts and their haunting. Astral beings cannot speak or write directly. They have to make use of the medium of the living and borrow what is contained in the etheric double of living beings. The etheric double acts as a sort of intermediary, passing on an impulse from one plane to another. In the normal human being the physical body and the etheric double cannot be easily separated from each other, whereas in the case of mediums it is possible. This etheric double of mediums is what produces many séance-room phenomena.
The dangerous beings on the astral plane are not these ghosts written about earlier, but evil entities who have no physical body only evil desires in them. They take a devilish pleasure in troubling other people and find some means of fulfilling their own evil desires. They seek out the bodies of men, very often like themselves, whom they can possess in order to carry out their evil intentions. They are unable to possess spiritually advanced people who have divine protection. Vampires and werewolves, we read about in sinister and macabre tales, are supposedly those astral entities who try to prolong their earthly life by usurping vitality from people.
Punishment for those who commit suicide depends on the circumstances under which the suicide was committed. On the whole, a human being who takes his or her own life, finds himself in uncongenial surroundings in the astral world. As compared to this, the exalted beings in the uppermost planes can, at times, manifest themselves on the lower ones. They may at times await incarnation in a physical body in order to come down to earth as sages or teachers of mankind.
It should be remembered, though it is difficult to imagine, that the divine force is present even in non-living matter. The spirits of nonliving matter, which are known as nature spirits, were classified by the alchemists of the Middle Ages into three groups, the earth-spirits or gnomes, the water-spirits or undines and the air spirits or sylphs. Today they are popularly known by a wide variety of names - fairies, gnomes, pixies, elves, imps, goblins, etc. Like the other members of the astral plane they are not visible to us but each has its own shape and form and many look like miniature human beings. They can gather around them the atomic structure of any given plane and can therefore materialise in any form. They generally avoid man, but occasionally being mischievous and impish, play practical jokes on him at seances. Children’s stories of fairies, elves, goblins, etc. may thus not necessarily be only fairy tales and may have some substance in them.
In the highest spheres live the exalted beings, the angels and the lords of karma who decide the destiny of each and every person on earth. These beings form the government of God, who watch us all through our life and record each and every thought and deed. At the end of our lives they weigh our good and bad deeds and after working out our karma give the kind of etheric double required for the next birth. It would be beneficial for us to remember the fact that we have to, at the end of our lives, account for all the good and bad we have done while alive and strive to maintain a good divine bank balance. One also marvels at the stupendous job these lords of karma carry out, watching over us day and night from birth to death. Since everything is not preordained and man is given a certain amount of free will, they have to counterbalance changes made in our karma by the decisions we make under the free will given to us.
The third and last group of members of the astral plane are what are known as artificial elements, semi-intelligent entities created intentionally or unintentionally by man. These artificial elements are created by our thoughts and last as long as our thoughts or wishes do. They eventually disintegrate but if a wish or prayer is persistent they remain in force and display more intelligence. Persistent prayers and wishes have the ability to produce long-term astral attendants who hover about and influence the producer of the element as well as the other person involved, if any. Prayers can supposedly influence the production of an element that acts as a guardian angel, protecting and guarding the person or persons involved. These guardian angels have the power to materialise in a chosen form if they so wish. This could be a possible explanation for the beneficial effects of prayer but additional factors like individual karma also come into play. The divine has the power to directly intervene in some cases.
If elements produced by a conscious effort can have effects, people who are well versed with black magic can produce elements at will, but for evil purposes. If these evil entities for some reason are unable to act upon the person they were supposed to harm, they boomerang on their creator with serious ill effects. They may at times wander far and wide and affect some other unsuspecting person.
4) The Akashic Records: Also known as ‘nature’s memory’, these are vast storehouses of knowledge that exist in the astral plane. The events of the past, present and future are recorded in the etheric matter of the astral worlds and are accessible to astral vision. They are a complete and thorough record of everything that has ever occurred, including the thoughts and feelings of every individual all through time. They may be found through meditation and astral journeying. They give useful information about a person’s past lives and may explain behavioural patterns, phobias, complexes and so on.
When I was young, I used to wonder how God kept a score of all our good and evil deeds. To me, it appeared as a job beyond the scope of one’s imagination to keep a track of the deeds, thoughts and actions of billions of men and women down the ages not only in our universe but also in the worlds other than our own. When I grew older and especially in recent years when I watch the amazing development in communication and information technology and high-speed computers, I am convinced of the possibility of a God superintending the affairs of humans with exactitude. Why not? If a man-made computer can store such a vast amount of data like an entire encyclopaedia in a single disc, it is well within the realm of possibility that a God who gave us the brain to make a computer can store all.
In order to understand a wide range of phenomena like haunting, crisis apparitions, materialisation at seances, poltergeists, spirit photographs, etc., one must have some idea of the resources a person on the astral plane has at his command. The astral plane should be thought of as an extension of the physical, and matter in it, although invisible to us, as the astral counterpart of the physical.
1) Astral vision and astral perception: As stated earlier, astral vision is much superior to physical sight. Astral beings or a person possessing astral vision is able to read passages from a closed book or describe objects and people in any location in space-time, without having to move anywhere. True clairvoyants, however, possess another set of faculties involving planes higher than the astral. At times, these higher planes may be temporarily visible to astral vision. Our physical bodies can sense light, sound, heat, cold, electricity, etc. Astral beings are receptive to many more vibrations than we are. They can, therefore gather information not perceptible to us.
2) Astral forces: Sympathetic vibration and latent energy are some astral forces used to explain astral phenomena. Given below are two examples of how sympathetic vibrations can be produced on the physical plane.
Imagine a harp with a number of wires and many more harps with wires tuned to the same pitch kept in its vicinity. If one of the wires in the harp is made to vibrate, it will cause sympathetic vibrations in the wires of the other harps also.
When a group of soldiers march across a suspension bridge, they are asked to break step after a while. If they don’t, the vibrations induced by their feet can weaken the bridge’s suspension.
Sympathetic vibrations in the astral plane have much more effect than those in our world because astral matter is less inert and vibrations set up in it much greater. A person aware of this may use this force to produce a number of effects, the chanting of mantras and spells being an example.
Latent energy: When matter changes from astral to physical, potential energy is stored in it. When matter changes form again, this potential energy is released as kinetic energy and can be utilised.
3) Disintegration and materialisation: These are common phenomenaseen in ghoststories and spiritualistséances. Disintegration of an object or person may be brought about by sympathetic vibrations of different kinds. Extremely rapid vibrations have the ability to separate the molecules of the object concerned. Another set of vibrations can further separate a molecule into its constituent atoms. The etheric or astral object can move swiftly from one place to another. It can also pass through solid matter in the same way water passes through a sieve.
By reversing the process of disintegration, astral or etheric matter can be transformed to the physical state resulting in the phenomena of materialisation.
During a séance a spirit may borrow matter from the etheric double of a medium. This could explain why the materialised form hovers around in the close vicinity of the medium and may be drawn back into his physical body with ease. In some cases dense physical matter may be borrowed from the medium’s body. Darkness is important during a séance because bright light causes rapid disintegration of a materialised spirit form.
Materialisations during a séance are divided into three kinds:
- Tangible but not visible (most frequent)
- Visible but not tangible
- Both visible and tangible
Invisible spirit hands which stroke sitters or move objects around the séance room and vocal cords that produce the ‘direct voice’ phenomenon, are examples of the first type.
4) Levitation: Levitation is the floating of the human body in air, commonly done by Indian yogis. The yogi accomplishes this by using his will power to neutralise or reverse the force of gravity on his body During a séance levitation can be produced by’spirit hands’.
5) Spirit lights: Spirit lights feature in some ghost stories. The light may be phosphorous or in the form of small dancing globules. Since light is produced by vibration it may be done at will by an astral or etheric entity.
Possible scientific explanation for
- Ghosts and haunting
- Séance-Room phenomena
- Poltergeist Phenomena
Ghosts and haunting:
Psychics who have the power to visualise the metaphysical realms can see the ghosts who reside in them. For an ordinary person to see a ghost either of two things must occur.
A ghost must materialise on the physical plane OR
A person must have a momentary flash of psychic vision.
Ghosts seen hovering in graveyards or in the vicinity of a recently dead person are the etheric doubles of the dead still lingering around. In houses or places supposed to be haunted, the thought forms (artificial entities in the astral plane) of the dead person involved linger around in the area. These thought-forms are more pronounced at a particular time, e.g. on the anniversary of a crime or murder. If these are strong enough they can materialise and be seen by people. A psychically sensitive person can see thought-forms that are not strong enough to be seen by ordinary people. He may even see the whole event (crime or murder) enacted in front of his eyes. Lingering forms (impressions left in astral matter) and astral entities are responsible for some phenomena associated with haunting.
Séance-Room phenomena:
During spiritualist seances, clairvoyants often claim to see the etheric double leaving the body of a medium after the medium goes into a trance. This etheric matter can supposedly mould itself into various spirit forms. Etheric matter can, at times, be photographed due to the reason that a photographic plate is sensitive to certain wavelengths of light that are not visible to our eyes. Etheric matter is plastic and readily moulded by the power of thought. However, etheric matter is not as easily moulded by thought, as is astral matter. Astral beings change shape at lightning speed whereas etheric beings take a little longer. Etheric beings can become visible to physical sight when they draw around them a veil of physical matter.
Etheric matter also acts as an intermediary between the physical and astral planes. An astral entity may use the etheric matter of a medium to produce phenomena like levitation, rapping, movement of objects and so on. Etheric matter from a medium can cover an astral entity making it visible. Sometimes etheric matter may even be withdrawn from the bodies of sitters present at the séance. Undesirable astral entities may attach themselves to mediums or sitters resulting in unpleasant experiences.
Poltergeist Phenomena:
Poltergeists are noisy and troublesome ghosts known to produce disturbing physical phenomena.
Possible explanations for the phenomena are:
- Psychokinetic activity on the part of an individual residing in the afflicted house.
- The work of elements in the spirit world.
Frustrated spirits may try to communicate with the living by throwing stones, flinging objects across the room, smashing crockery, etc. This could, at times, also be the work of mischievous nature spirits on the astral plane. These mischievous spirits are also known to produce physical phenomena at spiritualist seances.
The existence of the soul and its immortality is the backbone of most religions. Religions differ in their views of the fate of the soul after death, not on its existence or connection with the divine. Hindu scriptures tell us that the individual soul or ‘atman’ is part of the universal consciousness or God ‘Parmatma’.
If hundreds of millions of people around the world believe that man has an immortal soul, it probably exists and survives the death of the body. If it remains in some sphere after the physical envelope dies, it has to go somewhere. Where? It could either go to heaven or hell or purgatory in the astral plane where it remains for a certain period of time, or back to earth in another body.
Shamanistic cultures in different parts of the world believe that the rightful resting place of the soul is in any of these three domains of the astral plane namely heaven, hell or purgatory. The shaman or witch doctor is a being who can, by breathing techniques or in other ways, travel between the world of the living and the world of spirits. He travels between these worlds by using a cosmic axis, also known as the ‘tree of life’. Many shamans describe their encounters with souls of dead humans and animals, monsters, evil spirits, etc. Shamans are also supposedly possessed with super-human qualities by which they can heal the sick and predict the future. They also guide the spirits of the dead to their rightful place in the astral world.
From the beginning of civilisation various cultures, philosophies and sages have believed that the soul has a separate existence from the body even during life. Cro-Magnon man buried his dead with food and weapons. The Egyptians were the first major civilisation to be obsessed with a belief in the after-life. They mummified their dead and buried them with gold and precious stones, inscribed the walls of tombs and surrounded the body with instructions written in scrolls of papyrus, so that the dead could have a smooth transition to the after-life and live happily in it. Some Egyptian scrolls depict a human headed bird hovering above a dead body and transporting the soul to the nether world. The Egyptians equated the after-life (astral plane) with the kingdom of Osiris, the God of the Dead. Osiris was a king murdered by his brother Seth who cut his body into multiple pieces and scattered them all over Egypt. His wife Isis collected the pieces and joined them together with bandages, after which his spirit rose to the after-life.
Greek philosophers Socrates, Plato and Pythagoras also tried to solve the timeless riddle of the soul. So did the Syrians and the Romans.
Nachiketas raises the question in the Katha Upanishad. Refusing several other boons offered by Yama, the God of death, Nachiketus insists upon knowing what exactly happens to a person after death. Yama refuses to answer this question, telling him that it is a secret that the Gods themselves do not know. Any other boon he would give. As Nachiketus remains staunch, Yama answers his question. According to the Lord of Death there is nothing like death. All life emanates from Him; every animate and inanimate thing is born out of Him. For certain periods the atman in every one of us joins the Parmatma. Parapsychologists at the Society for Psychical Research in England and America spent many years researching the state of the soul after bodily death.
Even though the soul and its immortality has been a millennia long obsession, no one has been able to prove its fate after death. There is as yet no accepted method of confirming terms like soul, astral plane, astral body heaven, hell, God, etc. The astral plane is not a realm that can be explained by rational thought or scientific investigation. Therefore, even though man has grappled with the issue since time immemorial, no satisfactory conclusions on these terms have been drawn.
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